Riding the long, dusty trail through 50s Westerns.

On Memorial Day

Thinking about Memorial Day and all it means — and it means a lot — the first appropriate thing (for this blog) I thought of was She Wore A Yellow Ribbon (1949). When it comes to honor and tradition and America, John Ford and John Wayne sure seem to fit the bill.

If you want to sit down in front of your TV today, you can’t go wrong with any of Ford and Wayne’s Cavalry Trilogy — Fort Apache (1947), Yellow Ribbon and Rio Grande (1950). Or you can trade the spurs for combat boots and go with their They Were Expendable (1945), the greatest War Film ever made.